Owlishly

Wow, I really am still here

I haven't been online much the past couple of weeks for a couple of reasons, and I thought I'd better update, since the longer I'm away, the easier it is to stay away sadly.

My hard drive died on the 21st, freaking the heck out of me, and alternately, causing me to thank God profusely that we'd extending out warranty with Apple Care the night before!  There was some discussion that it might be saved, but after our appointment at the Genius Bar it was found that it was gone forever.  Luckily, a new hard drive was covered and I ended up buying upgraded software, an idea I'd been tossing around anyway for a while. Additionally, I happily found a memory stick that I'd forgotten that I'd saved pretty much all my files, save Celia's modifiable pattern- I had the pdf of it, so now I'll just go back and recreate her pattern.  The only thing I was upset about losing were all of my images in iPhoto, though it may be a good thing because organizing them was looking pretty daunting to me, and I have them all backed up on CD's.  Sadly, my husband, whose been pretty much spending 3-4 evenings weekly working on his family history ended up losing everything back until August which is the last time he backed up his files.

My husband's also been off of work since the 21st, the school district he works for is closed for 2 weeks for the holidays, so we get him home with us, and have been taking advantage of his presence to the fullest.  We've not been home much, except to tend to our little sickie baby girl over the course of last weekend, and even then, we've just been super busy.  Christmas was fun, and happily OVER, so now once I finish my niece's blanket I can get back to my own fun stuff.

I've been alternately working on her blanket and my daughter's angel doll, I've almost got the wings on her just the way I want them, and now only have the hair to decide on.  Oh, and I guess halo placement.  We'll be going out of town again today until probably the 2nd or 3rd going to stay with my aunt, whose also hosting my grandparents.  It should be fun spending New Year's Eve with them, especially since it's my grandma's birthday as well.

Anyhoo, just wanted to give a quick update, and now I've spent too much time doing it!

et cetera, et cetera, et cetera

This title is my little homage to Yul Brynner- gotta love The King and I!

I've finished up my cat pattern and have her posted now in my etsy shop, and I'm glad she's done.

I always feel a whole heck of a lot better having things completely finished, instead of having a bunch of WIPs and feeling overwhelmed.

I'm super pleased about the response I've gotten from everyone regarding these little dolls, I think they're super cute, and I'm glad so many others like them too.  I just hadn't realized that it would lead to a lot of other things that I hadn't planned on.  I'm both flattered and hesitant.  Especially because of familial responsibility that I feel a bit guilty about shirking, whether I actually am or not.

I still need to finish quite a bit of other things, including my niece's blanket that appears to take forever and a day.  I'm noticing that since I mainly have been crocheting dolls, I don't use a variety of hooks anymore, and so when I spend time on the blanket, just using a slightly different hook leaves my arm a tad sore the next day.  I've been trying to exercise my hands and wrists to avoid any problems with as busy as they are this month.

I also wanted to talk about the logo contest I ran on the old blog, that was to debut with this one.  I ended up deciding on the owl that shows in my November 29th post, yet the person who submitted it doesn't want to be known, so she won't be, only to know that she's from California too, and she chose the 10 patterns.  Here's the sweet little owl again, though I don't know where I'll be using it. 

I tried using it in my banner, but it just didn't look right to me, and I may use it on tags for dolls, but we'll see.  I feel like though I like it a ton, it just doesn't fit, or else the banner doesn't fit the type of dolls that I make. I don't know, I guess it doesn't really matter all that much, since everything I do is all representative of me in a way.

On that note, I do plan on tinkering around a bit, rearranging things here and there, until I feel that this blog and I are a good fit.  So in the coming weeks (probably months) expect to see things moved around, some times here, sometimes not.

Anyhoo, as most thoughts I have of late, this post seems really fragmented.  I'm going to have my ridiculously late dinner, and spend a bit of time on the looming blanket before getting some rest.

Put a fork in me

Because I am done!

With commissioned dolls for this winter, or at least this holiday season. 

Now I can get back to writing new patterns, which I'm finding out is my real love.  But just because I feel like a blog post is naked without an image, here are three images of the 2 dolls-

This is the detail of the wings, I actually did the bottom wings, but they looked really strange because the yarn chosen was thicker than the yarn I'd originally used, the customer chose the colors used as well.

This is the front of her.  For some reason her bangs came out really thick, I think it looks cute still, but I'm wondering why they look that way.

And last but certainly not least, a sweet little dinosaur boy.  The mama who ordered these wanted the wings to match the color of the dinosaur suit.

With regards to crafting/crocheting- I can't wait for Christmas and early January birthdays to be over with, then I can get back to leisurely fun!

Flickr's picnik

  P's Celia cat 
  Originally uploaded by *mia*

So I was at flickr right now looking at this image and just noticed the edit this photo option- how nice is that!

I was able to fix the colors without doing it in photoshop or iPhoto, which saves time for me!

Anyway, this is closer to what she looks like in real life, I *really* like the yarn, I bought it when I was visiting my aunt at her LYS and I think I left the label in her car when I was winding it in a ball, so now I have absolutely no idea what yarn it is, except that it's a superwash wool.   

Okay, off to finished up those commissioned dolls!

Meooowww!

   

Okay, let me preface this with I'm so *not* a cat person, I'm a dog person through and through, but I think she is so super cute!

I made her for a swap that I participated in, and I'd been putting off making a cat doll for a while now.  Even with being asked numerous times about it, I just kept finding other things that I'd rather make.  But the intended recipient likes cats, and my step-grandma is a super-dooper maniacal cat lover whose had a really rough couple of months so I bit the bullet and figured out my little cat pattern, which will be named for my grandma by the way- Celia. 

For some reason she looks really washed out, so hopefully for the pattern I'll darken the images a bit, and when I finished her last night I was just so in love, and so I embroidered a little heart on her chest with embroidery floss the same color as her little mouth. 

I've been working on a lot of commissioned dolls lately, and have 2 that have to be finished by Saturday so I haven't really had the chance to work on anything new, but it's so fun when I can.  Hopefully I'll have the pattern available later next week, but I really enjoyed making her.  I'm still looking for a good colored yarn for the faces of lighter skinned dolls, I really like the color of the tan dolls that I make, but even with that, ideally I could find a tan wool that matches the cotton blend that I use right now.  I just really prefer making them with wool, since it's so much easier on my hands, and I prefer natural fibers anyway. 

I always have trouble figuring out how to end a post without it seeming so disjointed, but I really do have to go to bed, so that's what I'll tell you, and I'll end with a goodnight!

This and That

  Raquel's Blanket & pattern 
  Originally uploaded by *mia*

I've been trying to get way too many things done with time that I never have.  I don't know how the heck I end up with so many things to do, and I'm not even able to work on the things that I enjoy working on lately. 

  Angel detail from parent's advent calendar 
  Originally uploaded by *mia*

First, my niece's blanket. She was supposed to come in February, and she surprised us, or my sister's faulty uterus as she's decided, in late November.  I told my sister when she got pregnant that I'd make a blanket for her, but she wouldn't take a normal baby blanket, she wanted a *special* one, so instead of accepting patterns that I could find, since she can't crochet or knit herself, I had to come up with one for her.  I do think the color's are sort of funky, but again, I didn't choose them, only the yarn!

I've also been working on an angel doll, as has everyone else this year it seems.  I keep frogging it trying to make it look like the idea I have in my head, but I like this little angel and may try to make it resemble this one.

  Turkey feathers 
  Originally uploaded by *mia*

This is what part of my turkey doll looks like too.  Haven't been able to finish him either, there went Thanksgiving, and looks like he won't be done by Christmas either, but I guess better late then never!

Been chugging along...

  The front of her 
  Originally uploaded by *mia*

Lately I've been a little frustrated creatively, I've not been able to work on new dolls/patterns since I've been doing a lot of commissioned work.  I like being able to help out, but I get tired of making the same dolls over and over again, and working on this latest one my fingers were ready to rear up and strangle me for agreeing to make the butterfly again, AND I still have one more to go before probably never making her again!

I like her and think she's super cute, I just don't like embroidering yarn, I even changed my technique this time and crocheted the wings looser too, but alas and alack, I've still got pricked and bloodied finger tips. 

  Commissioned butterfly in our lemon tree 
  Originally uploaded by *mia*

In good news, my dear, sweet, computer is finally fixed completely!  Good thing it was still under warranty, otherwise I wouldn't have been as happy a camper getting it fixed.  It's kind of ironic that it decided that acting up right after I decided to change blogs was a good idea, but I guess it keeps things interesting, not like I don't have a gazillion other things to work on this month.

I've been also slooooowly hooking away at my niece's sunflower blanket.  Man alive, I thought it'd be a lot easier, but I couldn't find a pattern anywhere for what my sister wanted, so I've been coming up with one myself.  I've been working in rounds so much this year that I'm finding that I prefer it, at least for the time being, but doing the petals in rounds isn't working out so well so I think I may be frogging soon.

The Little Boy's birthday is on Friday too, he turns 4, that just seems so dang old! Maybe it's because lately he's felt a lot more solid when he climbs up to give hugs or kisses, he's still a string bean but there's some heft to him now.  No where close to when he was a big 'ole cow baby, super chubby and squeezable, but still getting to where he feels more like a boy and a whole heck of a lot less than a toddler!

I'm off to go chase my gingerbread man around the house before getting the Girl down for a nap!

*Argh* computers!

I absolutely love my MacBook, it's seriously the best computer I've ever had, BUT, since my birthday it's been acting up.  It keeps turning off on me and I think there's something wrong with the charger or battery or the charger/battery connection, so yesterday we took it to the apple store near our home and hopefully we can get the kinks worked out soon.  Right now I'm at my aunt's using her computer to try and send some patterns from here, but I'm really annoyed at not being able to use mine, I have some custom ordered dolls that I'm supposed to be sending out soon and can't get the images up for the listing!

So there's just a quick update, mainly annoyed in tone, but at least it worked on my birthday and I was able to do all of my fun new blog/birthday pattern extravaganza :)

Be back as soon as I can get everything back in working order!